fact was that almost as soon as he had deposited his bag on the
table of the narrow bedroom assigned to him, the cold he had so long
neglected caught him seriously, and for an entire day and a half he
insisted on sitting at his window when he should have been in bed. On
the next day his feverish symptoms increased to such an extent that the
man who owned the room and who was a widower, managing for himself,
sent for a nurse. Tossing on the bed, and frequently rising to look
out of the window, Ringfield fretfully objected, but his landlord was
firm, and sent a message at once to the Hospital of the Incarnation,
the nearest charitable institution and the parent of several
flourishing branches, among which was that at Lalurette where Ringfield
had thought of placing Angeel. It was early on Thursday evening when
the message was sent, and at ten o'clock Archibald Groom, the
shopkeeper, came to say that a person recently arrived from the country
was below, but that she spoke very little English. He was not
answered, and bending over the bed he saw that his lodger was
delirious, eyes glassy and staring and head rolling from side to side,
with high colour and stertorous breathing.

To call the nurse, who was waiting in the shop, was the work of an
instant; she came quickly and noiselessly up the dark stair and saw at
once a case of brain fever, partly brought on by exposure and neglected
cold, also recognizing in the sick man the well-known minister at St.
Ignace and her husband's _protege_.

Mme. Poussette, for it was she, possessed more discretion than sense,
and more sense than wit; she looked calmly upon her patient as upon a
stranger and set about her work in silence.

Meanwhile Edmund Crabbe, on partially recovering from his first fit of
intemperance, sat up, and perceiving the well-filled flask he had
brought with him, seized it, and began afresh upon its contents. He
had left St. Ignace on Monday morning, and it was now Thursday; Henry
Clairville was dead and buried; the funeral obsequies being of a
complex nature, shabby and ornate, dignified and paltry, leisurely and
hurried, while the ceremony was at least well attended, since, as Dr.
Renaud had said, a Seigneur did not die every day. Profuse in the
matter of lappets, crucifixes, and in the number of voluble
country-folk and stout serious-lipped priests, Father Rielle, who had
charge of the proceedings, was compelled to accommodate himself to
circumstances,